Mica Creek Capital founder pursues Mountain way of life and finds success in Steamboat Springs

Michael McLarney lived within the New York City for practically twenty years. He labored for a personal fairness hedge fund. He modified his strategy in 2023. His want to pursue the mountain way of life led him and his household to Steamboat Springs.

“I quit my job in New York knowing that there’s not many people (in Steamboat Springs) who would hire me for what I do. If I wanted to stay here, I needed to build it — so that’s when I decided to build my own firm,” McLarney mentioned.

He took the primary steps to create that agency Mica Creek Capital, a specialised funding administration agency centered on actual property credit score that It invests within the debt facet of business actual property moderately than shopping for properties outright in 2023 after which launched the fund in 2024.

McLarney was capable of make the most of the Rural Jump-Start Program, provided by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, to get Mica Creek Capital off the bottom. The agency earned a $40,000 grant that McLarney used for advertising and investor outreach.

The agency swimming pools capital from institutional and high-net-worth buyers and deploys it to business mortgage securities, actual property loans and associated credit score devices. McLarney mentioned the agency, which began within the Ski Locker, managed a $23 million fund in 2024.

Two years later, Mica Creek capital has grown to 5 analysts who use a proprietary analytical platform that was constructed, in-house, to research mortgage securities.

“What once took hours, now takes minutes,” McLarney mentioned. “It’s the clearest expression of the firm’s core conviction — that a small, focused team, relative to industry competitor, armed with the right technological tools and compete anyone.”

McLarney has constructed a workforce that features Eddie Schermerhorn, whose household has been part of the Steamboat Springs group for 13 years, Felipe Guzman, a 2025 Cornell University graduate; and Aiden Belt who has been with the agency because it launched in 2024.

McLarney mentioned one of many agency’s focused funding sectors is critical in Steamboat Springs as it’s for his personal workers.

“The same forces that make housing credit an attractive investment thesis are forces the Mica Creek Capital team navigates personally,” McLarney mentioned. “… the team is not analyzing Steamboat’s housing challenge from a conference room in Manhattan. They are living it, and that ground-level understanding informs how they approach the national housing credit market.”

“Steamboat is an extraordinary place to live and work, but we can’t let our economic future be entirely tied to what happens in the snowpack,” McLarney mentioned. “I believed we could build an institutional financial services firm right here in the valley, one that creates well-paying, professional jobs and contributes to a more resilient local economy. That’s exactly what we’ve set out to do.”

McLarney hopes that Mica Creek Capital will deliver extra high-paying jobs to the world to spice up and diversify the economic system.  With that mentioned, he additionally understands that his Steamboat Springs location comes with challenges — the excessive price of residing and the distant location — however mentioned these are small sacrifices within the bigger image.

“We do spend a lot of time traveling, meeting people for fundraising, because it’s an evergreen structure, and we close new investors every month,” McLarney mentioned. “We seek to bring in new money, so we are constantly looking. Our pool here is kind of small, so we get out to New York, Atlanta, Texas, California and we’re always courting investors.”

McLarney, who earned his diploma a level in economics from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2000, has made loads of contacts throughout a 21-year-career that included roles at Citigroup, Barclays and LibreMax Capital.  He served for 8 years as head of business actual property and business mortgage-backed securities for an $11.3 billion structured credit score hedge fund in addition to one other eight years working alongside American Hedge fund supervisor, Greg Lippmann who’s featured in “the Big Short”.

But whereas on trip in Steamboat Springs in March of 2020 McLarney and his spouse Emily, who grew up in Colorado, determined the time was proper to depart the high-pressure life they have been main in New York for an opportunity to flee to the mountains they cherished.

“I never really planned it, but after CU I gradually, sort of step-by-step and unintentionally, moved east,” McLarney mentioned.  “I went to grad school in St. Louis at WashU and then took a job in New York — but always loved Colorado and the outdoors, peace, tranquility and lifestyle out here.”